M&S Economic Study
Economics: Assignment
Marks and Spencer's
Marks and Spencer's is a multinational chain of department stores, which sell a wide range women's, men's and children's clothing and footwear, gifts, home furnishings, beauty products, financial services and food, all exclusive to Marks and Spencer's. It is a successful company that has 375 stores in 29 countries worldwide and over 10million shoppers a week. As well as owning the US supermarket group "Kings Supermarkets" M&S website
The company has expanded both vertically and conglomerately. Looking at home ware, foods, flowers, (see appendix) cafés, gifts and cards. They have invested in many different styles of clothing ranges such as Per Una, Per Una Due and the Limited Collection. The conglomerate integration of the food market has proved to be very successful with the opening of independent "simply foods" branches and lifestores, selling homeware. M&S operates in an oligopolistic market structure with its main competitors being NEXT, House of Fraser, Gap and Alders. All of which have aimed their clothes at similar markets such as middle aged men and women and their children. This market has fairly high barriers to entry, as it is hard for new companies to enter and compete as these are well established firms with a dedicated customer base and strong supplier relationships. The larger firms such as M&S can take advantage of internal economies of scale. These would include bulk buying, managerial, and technical economies of scale. For M&S bulk buying would mean that they can use the size of their company and massive purchasing power to get huge discounts from their suppliers. Managerial economies of scale would mean that they can specialise their managers and as the output of the M&S rises the managerial cost per unit output will not rise at the same rate. The Technical economies of scale that M&S would take advantage of would be things such as large storage would mean lower cost of storage per
Marks and Spencer's
Marks and Spencer's is a multinational chain of department stores, which sell a wide range women's, men's and children's clothing and footwear, gifts, home furnishings, beauty products, financial services and food, all exclusive to Marks and Spencer's. It is a successful company that has 375 stores in 29 countries worldwide and over 10million shoppers a week. As well as owning the US supermarket group "Kings Supermarkets" M&S website
The company has expanded both vertically and conglomerately. Looking at home ware, foods, flowers, (see appendix) cafés, gifts and cards. They have invested in many different styles of clothing ranges such as Per Una, Per Una Due and the Limited Collection. The conglomerate integration of the food market has proved to be very successful with the opening of independent "simply foods" branches and lifestores, selling homeware. M&S operates in an oligopolistic market structure with its main competitors being NEXT, House of Fraser, Gap and Alders. All of which have aimed their clothes at similar markets such as middle aged men and women and their children. This market has fairly high barriers to entry, as it is hard for new companies to enter and compete as these are well established firms with a dedicated customer base and strong supplier relationships. The larger firms such as M&S can take advantage of internal economies of scale. These would include bulk buying, managerial, and technical economies of scale. For M&S bulk buying would mean that they can use the size of their company and massive purchasing power to get huge discounts from their suppliers. Managerial economies of scale would mean that they can specialise their managers and as the output of the M&S rises the managerial cost per unit output will not rise at the same rate. The Technical economies of scale that M&S would take advantage of would be things such as large storage would mean lower cost of storage per